Note: some of the finer details are very wip and subject to change. Gameplay will be very much like a boardgame and limited number of turns per round (based on ship movement turns).

This is a game i made a start on ages ago and recently restarted from scratch as i know more about Adrift than my first attempt. It is something a bit different as it will be multi-player for a start, kind of like pbem if you will (Play by Email). It will be played like a tabletop/board game and involving (at this point) up to 4 players. Where each player has to login and create a password (initially) and has a set amount of turns before its time to be logged out and you save the game and send the saved file to the next player, who then opens the saved game and logs in and does their set number of turns.

The basic premise is 1 Player is the Sub commander and has to sink Merchant ships at a given way point which will different each time, the Destroyer (DD) ships played by the other players have to protect merchant ships and also patrol to find the submarine. They will have depth charges (limited) and a deck gun to use. The Sub will of course have torpedoes, like you wouldn't of guessed lol and a deck gun as last defense.

You might be wondering how will depth charging will work when its not your turn. The DD ships will be set up to play like its Single Player and is what i will work on next. If the sub is detected by a DD when its Captain/Player isn't having their turn the DD will use preset Patrol pattern (which there will be a default one) the Player can pick another and is stored. A pattern will be 4-5 movements and at each location X amount of depth charges are dropped based on DD sonar crew reports (accuracy check).

If the DD Player is active and the sub is detected likewise a pre-set evasion pattern for Uboat kicks in what they choose- might be go to the lowest depth or move slowly right or left for duration of turns. And perhaps these kind of encounters will end the round prematurely. Turns are only counted by boat movement, so it could be possible a DD remains on their last movement turn and decided to use up more depth charges there, it might pay off or it might use them up. The sub can run silent and uses 2 turns to move 1 location but is harder to detect.

There will be a Bases/Docks (1 base for DD boats and 3 Sub-pens for the single Submarine) which they can return to and resupply fuel, ammo, food.

Crew morale will be part of the gameplay, more so for the Submarine. Depth charges can damage and weaken the hull if not directly hit, so things will break and doing down real deep to avoid charges could create damage and incidents as well. So crew morale for uboats is more prone to swing.

The sub has to surface to replenish air and recharge batteries and max speed under water is 2 locations per turn, and food supply is another factor too, how this will be balanced i will work out later. Food stores could get damaged and spoiled from water (ie. a section gets closed off due to flooding) from an attack or hitting some terrain on the ocean floor.

I do plan to add later on perhaps also managing crew with the importance of sleep/alertness which will factor in calculations on doing things like crash diving, torpedo loading/firing, reapirs etc, So rostering on/off duty to make sure crew are at their best etc. But this aspect will get added very last once everything else is added in and is balanced, this will make SP as a Sub Commander more interesting as well. Also if your key specialized crew get sick, wounded or killed you will have to assign another person to take that role who might be less skilled which will impact things (calculations) as well as bad morale can affect things (Morale can be restored by 80-90% at a dock). Playing records can help the mood of the uboat crew, but perhaps increase chance of being detected if a DD is nearby.

As for the DD boats;The crew aren't in the same stressful position of being underwater in cramped space and so morale could be affected by perhaps knowing other DD boats have been sunk or failure to protect X amount of Merchant ships. Also it will be possible to be crippled in the water; either the propellers being knocked out or DD is slowly sinking. There may be a new mission for other DD players to rescue crew from a stricken DD. Sonar equipment can be damaged from torpedo attacks. They will be detectable to the Uboat as well (at a certain range) especially at high speeds and using active sonar (which perhaps can reach deeper but gives them away).

Detection Log:There will be a log for all Destroyers/Players that shows any detection of Uboat where, when and by what means eg. visual or sonar, these will be also turn number stamped. If it gets too hard to find the sub, perhaps some air patrols can be used if the sub surfaces to help find it, but at this stage that idea isn't on the board. This idea could be added if the map size is increased in future and can only be used once per round and may have other limits also.

Side missions: (added very last- more SP aspect)The Uboat might not always be sink Merchant ships, they might have to meet another uboat that is stranded or to receive something from or have a goal to sink two DD ships and some other ideas ive yet to come up with.

Ocean Map:The ocean map has at this stage just over 200 locations but you will be about to move at three speeds, and fastest being 3 locations in one move when on the surface. I might end up increasing map size, for the DD boats their Patrol waypoints are within a part of a map a Sub is told to go to- because after all the DD boats will be assigned most of the time to escort Merchant ships, so its no surprise the sub will be turn up somewhere. Players who know each other could use a message system that i will have in the game where they can share ideas and coordinate patrols. The sub will be alone (or possibly there will be NPC uboats too?) but has more stealth. But has to come up for air/recharge sometime. Any DD boats with a range will automatically attack on sight (if Captain is offline- so to speak)

I might have a score system for players based on things like successful; evasions, attacks, boats sunk, detection etc.

There will be some zones on the map the DDs cannot go- such as 4 tiles away from sub pens- so they cant just camp near one, and same for the uboat and the Allies HQ.

The winning for the Uboat is sinking X amount of ships over X amount of patrols and of course for the Destroyers winning is sinking or immobilizing the uboat.

If this game is a success and is fun to play i will expand number of playable Uboats and of course map size. Along with new objectives etc.

What is done so far:

Login/out systemBoat Movement and speeds (inc lower speeds given an auto visual check in all directions)Fuel depleting according to speedRefueling at a Dock/BaseAssign dynamic Patrol waypoint Switching between boat map and ocean mapUsing periscope/binos (able to view 2 locations in one direction at time)Crash dive (Uboat: Will have a chance of not being detected if a DD is 2 tiles away)Run SilentGo to periscope depthGo to depth XReport System (needs a refit but good to go)

Next:

>Auto-Patrol and Evasion/Attack upon detection (DD players will be able to have Evasion plans stored before logging out as well- such as when torpedoes are fired at it.)

> Firing Torpedoes at Ships (Perhaps DDs close by can detect these torpedoes and work out location of Uboat if said boat is has engines idle)

Jeez! That looks like quite an accomplishment.If The0didactus and myself get our games finished there'll be 3 mammoth games released. Could this be the beginning of a new era for Adrift? (Now we just need Campbell to show up again, and things might start rolling. )

I just saw the word 'PBEM' and now my head is spinning. Kind of surprising no one else has ever come up with something this considering how easy the files are to share. A save could be uploaded right into a thread to pass the turn on to the next person.

Auto-Navigation for NPC Destroyers (This will be for cases where there are only two players and the Destroyer/Hunter Player can have some NPC Destroyers to order around the map)Sighting Uboat on Surface is added to a Report Window- where, when etcAuto-look adjacent locations with moving (inc NPC Ships) looking for Surfaced Uboats

Depth Charge Mechanics Implemented: The damage numbers i will tweak later.There are default depth and number of charges used per firing them. Player can permanently change these as well as temporary override default number of charges fired.When choosing a depth you have a small margin of +9 and -9 of depth they drop to when rolling dice for chance of Direct hit and dealing damage to a sub at that depth, so for example if the Uboat is at 55 meters and the depth charges are set to 50 or 60 meters the sub has a good chance of getting hit. Direct hit will deal -70 HP and also another roll for additional damages (which will get rolled for anyway if no direct hit)- so this means there is a chance of a double hit. In-direct hits if dealt can deal between 2-20 dmg.

Next to do:

Sonar: This one will be gamified quite a bit, likely Uboat players will cut engines and have silent running as their default evade speed before logging out. So when a player who is a hunter/Destroyer is trying to detect the sub the Sonar Officer Skill will be part of that. His skill will level up slowly. If your Destroyer is above or adjacent to the sub then good chance it will be detected. When using the sonar the Destroyer will get logged on the Uboat Players report log. Getting the correct depth will be the hard bit for the Destroyer Player- and the more experienced his Sonar Officer the quicker the correct depth can be found.

So i might do it like, correct depth of uboat + rng range up to 50-60 meters off. So the Player will have to set random depth for their charges and hope to get close. In which case they can set number of charges to 1 or 2 and use them as probes. I will factor in the closer to the surface the sub is the shorter the rng range.When depth charges get a hit for the first time the Sonar Officer gets an experience boost. He might get 1% experience each time he uses the sonar. Even reaching max experience the range of margin for error still might be +20 or -20 but you will be able to dial it in much quicker.

And it might take a few goes to detect a sub (if you are in same location) adjacent Running the sonar command several times Implementing for Uboats and Destroyers auto-evade based on properties set, there will be 4 different ones set to a direction.

Evading (offline): Originally i planned to be able to use pre-set evasion directions for both ships. But i think i will only make this for Destroyers, because of the amount of turns it might take for a Destroyer to get a rough idea what depth the Uboat is at. IRL a destroyer could deploy/fire charges in three directions and do patterns in small area.

In the case of an offline Players destroyer detects a sub approaching (Current Player is a Uboat) it will do a evade pattern. The uboat can attempt to fire torpedoes to adjacent locations of it in hope of getting a hit (2 location travel range).

I want also have that destroyer (i will call it offline as Player who controls it isn't playing) go on the offensive after the evasion moves and attempt to move to Uboat's location and deploy depth charges with rng the depth the Sonar Officer gives as a starting point. Since the uboat has to be about 30m to use torpedoes effectively, they will have to go on the defensive.And if they try to move out of the area, their movements will be detected and Destroyer will follow. The faster the uboat moves the more accurate its depth can be obtained. Uboat moves one location at a time (in non combat times a uboat surfaced can move at fastest speed of x 2 locations) the destroyer can move faster than a submerged uboat and can deploy charges when arriving in same location. Uboat can rig for silent running- and it will take 2 turns to move- but harder to detect so good possibly it can slip away. So the rng range/depth modifier for the Sonar officer will increase making it harder to dial in its true depth.

Still the Player Destroyer might get a lucky direct hit. Damage to a uboat can immobilize it until it can be fixed. Since a Destroyer player might have another NPC Destroyer in their command they might bring it over to over-watch an area or also deploy charges at a different depth at same location of detected uboat.

I may give the uboat some other evade options, such as sending up an oil slick as a decoy after some depth charging. This might be something they can only do once per mission.

And lastly Torpedo Mechanics have yet to be implemented. I want to have some interesting mechanics behind it, and again Crew skill will be a factor. When attacking a convoy, Destroyers will be alerted and will make their way there. Hunter/Destroyer players might already have an assignment to protect a specific convoy. So the uboat will have to pick their target and hope to sink it and another before slipping away.

Have now added in Sonar mechanics for the Destroyers, for the Player at least. The Sonarman skill has three levels 30,20,10 and dice roll determines if the the sonar reading will be above or below the submarines actual depth. So if you know the sonarman will be off by 30m you wont immediately guess the boat depth, still its a 50/50 chance you get it right. However even getting the right depth does not mean curtains for the submarine, it is possible to do little to no damage. In fact, the more depth charges you use the greater the chance of inflicting damage. But you use up more depth charges of course.

I will add a modifier if the submarine is moving so that perhaps the reading will be stated whether it is below or above the submarine and also will add the possibility the submarine is in an adjacent location and be able to launch depth charges into adjacent location.

After having a bit of a break from this game, i also reviewed some of the commands in the game and reworked them to sound better, make more sense. And updated the help command where they are listed also.

I still need to work on evading mechanics, more for when the player who controls the submarine isn't playing and getting depth charged. And also the torpedo mechanics needs to be added too.